Improving the Ecological Validity of Cognitive Assessments : Virtual Reality Testing of Prospective Memory Following Chemotherapy Treatments for Breast Cancer

Improving the Ecological Validity of Cognitive Assessments:
Virtual Reality Testing of Prospective Memory Following
Chemotherapy Treatments for Breast Cancer
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Program, Griffith Health Institute,
Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia
2
Department of
Rehabilitation
Sciences The Hong Kong
Polytechnic
2
Department
of
Rehabilitation
Sciences
,
The
Hong
Kong
Polytechnic
University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong, People's Republic of China
ICCTF International Cognition & Cancer Taskforce Conference
Paris, France 15-17 March 2012

Conflicting Perspectives/Emphases
Researchers Patients
“Mild”, “subtle”
Objective
Functional outcome
Subjective
A
bsolute deficits Relative deficits
ICCTF International Cognition and Cancer ICCTF International Cognition and Cancer TaskTask Force Force ConferenceConference March 15March 15--17 17 thth 2012 2012 ––PARIS PARIS --FRANCEFRANCE

Ecological Validity
“Functional and predictive relationship
between the patient’s performance on a
set of neuro
p
s
y
cholo
g
ical tests and the
py g
patient’s behavior in a variety of real world
settings
”
(
Sbordone
1996)
settings
(
Sbordone
,
1996)
2 approaches (Spooner & Pachana, 2006)
Verisimilitude: Match between test task
demands and everyday environment demands
Veridicality: Statistical r’ship to scores on other
measures related to ever
y
da
y
p
erformance
ICCTF International Cognition and Cancer ICCTF International Cognition and Cancer TaskTask Force Force ConferenceConference March 15March 15--17 17 thth 2012 2012 ––PARIS PARIS --FRANCEFRANCE
yyp

Present Study
Ecological validity
1. Prospective memory (PM)
2.
Virtual reality testing (VR)
2.
Virtual
reality
testing
(VR)
Research comparability: ICCTF-
dd
recommen
d
e
d
measures
1. Trailmaking Test, Hopkins Verbal Learning
Task, Controlled Oral Word Fluency Test
2. FACT-Co
g
3
g
ICCTF International Cognition and Cancer ICCTF International Cognition and Cancer TaskTask Force Force ConferenceConference March 15March 15--17 17 thth 2012 2012 ––PARIS PARIS --FRANCEFRANCE